The decision of Nicaea related primarily only to the
essential deity of Christ. But in the wider range of the Arian
controversies the deity of the Holy Ghost, which stands and falls with
the deity of the Son, was indirectly involved. The church always,
indeed, connected faith in the Holy Spirit with faith in the Father and
Son, but considered the doctrine concerning the Holy Spirit as only an
appendix to the doctrine concerning the Father and the Son, until the
logical progress brought it to lay equal emphasis on the deity and
personality of the Holy Ghost, and to place him with the Father and Son
as an element of equal claim in the Trinity.

The Arians made the Holy Ghost the first creature
of the Son, and as subordinate to the Son as the Son to the Father. The
Arian trinity was therefore not a trinity immanent and eternal, but
arising in time and in descending grades, consisting of the uncreated
God and two created demi-gods. The Semi-Arians here, as elsewhere,
approached the orthodox doctrine, but rejected the consubstantiality,
and asserted the creation, of the Spirit. Thus especially Macedonius, a
moderate Semi-Arian, whom the Arian court-party had driven from the
episcopal chair of Constantinople. From him the adherents of the false
doctrine concerning the Holy Spirit, were, after 362, called
Macedonians;14141414Μακεδονιανοί. also
Pneumatomachi,14151415Πνευματόμαχοι. and
Tropici.14161416Τροπικοί. This name comes probably from their
explaining as mere tropes (figurative expressions) or metaphors the
passages of Scripture from which the orthodox derived the deity of the
Holy Spirit. Comp. Athanas., Ad Serap. Ep. i. c. 2 (tom. i. Pars ii. p.
649).

Even among the adherents of the Nicene orthodoxy
an uncertainty still for a time prevailed respecting the doctrine of
the third person of the Holy Trinity. Some held the Spirit to be an
impersonal power or attribute of God; others, at farthest, would not go
beyond the expressions of the Scriptures. Gregory Nazianzen, who for
his own part believed and taught the consubstantiality of the Holy
Ghost with the Father and the Son, so late as 380 made the remarkable
concession:14171417 Orat. xxxi. De Spiritu sancto, cap. 5 (Op. tom.
i. p. 559, and in Thilo’s Bibliotheca P. Gr. dogm.
vol. ii. p. 503). “Of the wise
among us, some consider the Holy Ghost an influence, others a creature,
others God himself,14181418τῶν καθ
̓ ἡμᾶς
σοφῶν οἱ
μὲν
ἐνέργειαν
τοῦτο [τὸ
πνεῦμα
ἅγιον] ὑπέλαβον,
οἱ δὲ
κτίσμα, οἱ
δὲ Θεόν. and
again others know not which way to decide, from reverence, as they say,
for the Holy Scripture, which declares nothing exact in the case. For
this reason they waver between worshipping and not worshipping the Holy
Ghost,14191419 Ou̓́τε
σέβουσιν,
οὔτε
ἀτιμάζουσι. and strike a
middle course, which is in fact, however, a bad one.” Basil, in 370,
still carefully avoided calling the Holy Ghost God, though with the
view of gaining the weak. Hilary of Poictiers
believed that the Spirit, who searches the deep things of God, must be
divine, but could find no Scripture passage in which he is called God,
and thought that he must be content with the existence of the Holy
Ghost, which the Scripture teaches and the heart attests.14201420 De trinitate, ii. 29; and xii.
55.

But the church could not possibly satisfy itself
with only two in one. The baptismal formula and the apostolic benediction, as well as the traditional trinitarian
doxologies, put the Holy Ghost on an equality with the Father and the
Son, and require a divine tri-personality resting upon a unity of
essence. The divine triad tolerates in itself no inequality of essence,
no mixture of Creator and creature. Athanasius well perceived this, and
advocated with decision the consubstantiality of the Holy Spirit
against the Pneumatomachi or Tropici.14211421 In the four Epistles to Serapion, bishop of
Tmuis, written in 362 (Ep. ad Serapionem Thmuitanum episcopum contra
illos qui blasphemant et dicunt Spiritum S. rem creatam esse), in his
Opera, ed. Bened. tom. i. Pars ii. pp. 647-714; also in
Thilo’s Biblioth. Patr. Graec. dogmatica, vol. i. pp.
666-819. Basil did the same,14221422 De Spiritu Sancto ad S. Amphilochium Iconii
episcopum (Opera, ed. Bened. tom. iii. and in Thilo’s
Bibl. vol. ii. pp. 182-343). and Gregory of Nazianzum,14231423 Orat. xxxi. De Spiritu Sancto (Opera, tom. i.
p. 556 sqq. and in Thilo’s Bibl. vol. ii. pp.
497-537). Gregory of Nyssa,14241424 Orat. catech. c. 2. Comp. Rupp, Gregor v.
Nyasa, p. 169 sq. Didymus,14251425 De Spiritu S., translated by
Jerome. and Ambrose.14261426 De Spiritu S. libri 3.

This doctrine conquered at the councils of
Alexandria, a.d. 362, of Rome, 375, and finally of Constantinople, 381,
and became an essential constituent of the ecumenical orthodoxy.

Accordingly the Creed of Constantinople
supplemented the Nicene with the important addition: “And in the Holy
Ghost, who is Lord and Giver of life, who with the Father is worshipped
and glorified, who spake by the prophets.”14271427 Similar additions had already been previously
made to the Nicene Creed. Thus Epiphanius in his Ancoratus, c. 120,
which was written in 374, gives the Nicene Creed as then already in
general use with the following passage on the Holy
Spirit: Καὶ εἰς
τὸ ἅγιον
πνεῦμα
πιστεύομεν,
τὸ λαλῆσαν
ἐν νόμῳ,
καὶ
κηρύξαν ἐν
τοῖς
προφήταις
καὶ
καταβὰν
ἐπὶ τὸν
Ἰορδάνην,
λαλοῦν ἐν
ἀποστόλοις
, οἰκοῦν ἐν
ἁγίοις·
οὕτως δὲ
πιστεύομεν
ἐν αὐτῷ,
ὅτι ἐστὶ
πνεῦμα
ἅγιον,
πνεῦμα
Θεοῦ,
πνεῦμα
τέλειον,
πνεῦμα
παράκλητον,
ἄκτιστον,
ἐκ τοῦ
πατρὸς
ἐκπορευόμενον,
καὶ ἐκ τοῦ
υἱοῦ
λαμβανόμενον
καὶ
πιστευόμενον. His shorter Creed, Anc. c. 119 (in
Migne’s ed. tom. iii. 231), even literally agrees with
that of Constantinople, but in both he adds the anathema of the
original Nicene Creed.

This declares the consubstantiality of the Holy
Ghost, not indeed in words, yet in fact, and challenges for him divine
dignity and worship.

The exegetical proofs employed by the Nicene
fathers for the deity of the Holy Ghost are chiefly the following. The
Holy Ghost is nowhere in Scripture reckoned among creatures or angels,
but is placed in God himself, co-eternal with God, as that which
searches the depths of Godhead (1 Cor. ii. 11, 12). He fills the universe, and is
everywhere present (Ps. cxxxix. 7), while creatures, even angels, are in
definite places. He was active even in the creation (Gen. i. 3), and filled Moses and the
prophets. From him proceeds the divine work of regeneration and
sanctification (John iii. 5;
Rom. i. 4; viii. 11; 1 Cor. vi. 11; Tit. iii.
5–7; Eph. iii. 16; v. 17, 19, &c). He is the source of all gifts
in the church (1 Cor. xii).
He dwells in believers, like the Father and the Son, and makes them
partakers of the divine life. Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is the
extreme sin, which cannot be forgiven (Matt. xii. 31). Lying to the Holy Ghost is called
lying to God (Acts v. 3, 4).
In the formula of baptism (Matt. xxviii. 19), and likewise in the apostolic benediction (2 Cor. xiii. 13), the Holy Ghost is put on a level with
the Father and the Son and yet distinguished from both; he must
therefore be truly divine, yet at the same time a self-conscious
person.14281428 The well-known passage concerning the three
witnesses in heaven, I John v. 7, is not cited by the Nicene fathers: a
strong evidence that it was wanting in the manuscripts of the Bible at
that time. The Holy Ghost
is the source of sanctification, and unites us with the divine life,
and thus must himself be divine. The divine trinity tolerates in itself
nothing created and changeable. As the Son is begotten of the Father
from eternity, so the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son.
(The procession of the Spirit from the Son, on the contrary, is a
subsequent inference of the Latin church from the consubstantiality of
the Son, and was unknown to the Nicene fathers.)

The distinction between generation and procession
is not particularly defined. Augustine calls
both ineffable and inexplicable.14291429 “Ego distinguere nescio, non valeo, non
sufficio, propterea quia sicut generatio ita processio inenarrabilis
est.” The doctrine of the Holy Ghost was not in any
respect so accurately developed in this period, as the doctrine
concerning Christ, and it shows many gaps.

1428 The well-known passage concerning the three
witnesses in heaven, I John v. 7, is not cited by the Nicene fathers: a
strong evidence that it was wanting in the manuscripts of the Bible at
that time.